Crunch time for Sharon and Abbas

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There is goodwill on both sides, but some tough calls
have to be made, writes Tony Parkinson.

Listen to Moshe Katsav talking about Palestinian leader, Mahmoud
Abbas, and you begin to think that maybe, this time, there are
precious possibilities for genuine progress. "I trust him," the
Israeli President told me during his visit this week. "I think he
is an honest man, and I believe the direction he has taken is
absolutely right."

This says a lot about changing mind-sets in the Middle East.
It's not that Katsav, a former Likud minister, believes Yasser
Arafat's successor can deliver miracles but, rather, that this is
not a moment for pessimism. Senior Israelis sense Abbas offers the
best chance in a long while to secure an accommodation between the
two warring peoples.

This is evident not just in the sentiments of Katsav. It was
also demonstrated in the measured reaction of Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon to the latest terrorist atrocity in Israel.

At any other time in the past five years, a suicide bombing like
last Friday night's attack on a nightclub in the heart of Tel Aviv
would have brought Israeli troops and tanks rumbling into the West
Bank to hunt down and punish the perpetrators.

Not this time. Sharon directed his venom not at the Palestinian
leadership but Islamic Jihad, which he accused of acting on the
orders of Syria.

He urged Abbas to take decisive action to dismantle terrorist
infrastructure. But his comparative restraint suggested
acknowledgement of the complex dynamics of a Palestinian society
struggling to reinvent itself, within a region struggling to
reinvent itself.

For their part, the Palestinians dropped the ritualistic "root
cause" statements excusing any and all attacks on Israeli
civilians. There was no dancing and whooping on the streets, no
attempt to defend the indefensible. Indeed, Palestinians were
quoted voicing unconditional anger over what they saw, rightly, as
a callous strike at aspirations for peace.

The game is changing. The death of Arafat, Israel's plans for a
unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, and shifting attitudes across the
wider Middle East have combined to create oxygen for a new and more
determined peace effort. Will it last? Who can say?

But this week's gathering in London put on show the serious
horsepower behind the revival of the so-called peace road map. The
United Nations, Russia, the European Union and the United States
have reconvened to resuscitate a project stalled since 2003.

For Israel, there was a firm message: not only must it lift the
closures, checkpoints and other restrictions on the movement of
Palestinians, but it must halt all settlement activity on the West
Bank. Sharon was reminded that settlements cannot be allowed to
stand in the way of a viable Palestinian state, as a coherent and
contiguous sovereign entity, not a series of scattered territorial
blocs. The warning carried the imprimatur of US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice.

Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan, scheduled to begin in July,
will start to lift the imprint of occupation, and create political
space for Palestinian moderates.

But it will also fuel intense internal pressures as Israel sets
about removing, by force if necessary, as many as 2500 settler
families from the Palestinian territories.

These will be vexing days for Israel. Which is why an effective
ceasefire is vital. The politics of the withdrawal may prove
impossible if there are ongoing terrorist attacks.

Here, Abbas must accept some of the burden. In London, the
leading powers demanded he take immediate action not just to
capture those behind the Tel Aviv bombing, but to begin a serious
clampdown on terrorist activity. For Abbas, it was a signal he
cannot put off for much longer fundamental choices about who he
tries to keep inside the official tent.

His priority is to assemble a credible security and political
team in Gaza before Israel starts to withdraw. The big obstacle
will be Hamas, which is strong in Gaza, has never accepted a
two-state solution, and is equivocal on the ceasefire.

The preference of Abbas has been to contain rather than to
confront Hamas, to bring them inside the political process rather
than risk a violent stand-off. But to what extent will any
commitment by Hamas to a social and political charter serve merely
as defensive cover for its long-term military strategies? And if
extremists opt for a twin strategy of the bomb and the ballot box,
what can Abbas do to stop it, without the roof falling in on
him?

This time, it seems that goodwill exists. On both sides. But for
Israeli and Palestinian leaders alike, the crunch decisions are
approaching.